IN an increasingly uncertain job market, nine in 10 Malaysian employees – or 90% – see the need to reskill or to upskill to stay relevant in a post-pandemic world, the results of the UOB Asean Consumer Sentiment study showed.

UOB Malaysia’s executive director and head of human resource Lai Tak Ming said the widespread view comes amid expectations it will be tough to secure a new job due to the economic downturn.

He said the study found that 85% of Malaysian respondents believe companies will prefer hiring people who can perform multiple functions, while 83% think employers will reduce headcount by stepping up their digitalisation efforts.

Meanwhile, 78% of respondents expect companies to use retrenchment to cut costs.

The study showed that among the different age groups surveyed, concerns around job security are felt most strongly by Generation Z – those between the ages of 18 and 23.

“Some 94% of respondents within this age range also believe employers will retrench staff to cut costs, if needed,” Lai said.

He said the sentiment was echoed by Generation X (aged 40 to 55) and Generation Y (aged 24 to 39) at 77% and 76% respectively.

According to the Statistics Department, the country’s unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point month-on-month to 4.7% in October.

Chief statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the labour force improved at a slower pace in October due to an increase in both employed and unemployed persons.

He said the number of unemployed persons went up by 1.5% to 748,200 persons compared with September, while employed persons also registered an uptrend for five consecutive months with a marginal growth of 0.1% month-on-month to 15.21 million persons.

As most states were placed under the conditional movement-control order (CMCO) effective October 14, industrial and business activities continued their operations with compliance to strict standard operating procedure.

Hence, the labour market remained in modest condition as translated by the indicator of employment-to-population ratio, which rose to 65.3% in October.

As for employment status, a higher number of employee categories were recorded during the month with an increase of 28,100 to 11.76 million persons compared with the previous month, the department said.

In the meantime, the number of employed persons who were temporarily not working increased to 183,600 against September (100,700) mainly due to the implementation of CMCO during the month.

The country registered the highest number of those temporarily not working, with a total of 5.9 million during MCO in April. – December 28, 2020.